Wittenberg: Sketches
by Zallah
Summary: Brief scenes from Wittenberg. Collected together in one place, although not necessarily temporally sequent.
1. Desk Perch

Disclaimer: Not mine. Even if we grant me the benefit of the doubt with respect to public domain, this understanding of the characters is as much Creare's as mine.

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Just once, Hamlet would like to see what Horatio would do if the prince were to leap up and crouch amongst the scholar's books and papers. It would be an amusing spectacle, but Hamlet could not bring himself to perform the experiment in reality: Horatio's shroud of scholarship - when he chose to don it - might or might not be impregnable, but it certainly was inviolable . . . sacred, even. The prince might approach Horatio and wait for the latter to obey - at his convenience - the tacit command for his attention, but for Hamlet to directly intrude upon Horatio's studious universe would be tantamount to blasphemy. This was Wittenberg, where the man of books was the best of men, and that unparalled entity who claimed to have sprung from a family of Polish merchants (impossible! Beings such as Horatio - if indeed there were more if his kind than he alone - did not come from men of any sort . . . nor from women, for that matter) was the paragon of them all.

If anybody's desk were to become a perch, it was Hamlet's. That would be nothing new, however: Hamlet himself had been sitting, poised, on that very article of furniture mere moments previously. He was balanced on the back of a chair now. Horatio would not perch on a desk or a table, though - that would be too much in the middle of things for him. Perhaps if Hamlet, who was now pacing before a window, were to strew his books upon a window sill . . . ? The image was laughable: Horatio simply did not _perch_, not in that way at least. He would ensconce himself upon some removed and lofty outlook from which he might observe all the worlds - and whatever it was that he sought for in all of them - and he would settle in to do just that. He would not watch, aquiver with anticipation, for some unsuspecting prey to pass along which he could swoop down upon. In any case, Hamlet wanted to be the one to pounce.

Of course, there was another reason why Hamlet would not attempt this. There was always the chance, however extremely miniscule, that Horatio would simply jump back or become annoyed, thereby proving that he was only human after all. Hamlet didn't want to see that.


	2. Horatio's Book

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

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From somewhere above came: 'Good day, my lord.'

'What - ?' This was unexpected in the extreme, the more so once identification was made. 'Horatio! What are you doing up there? I would think that of the two of us, I ought to be the one perched on a wall.'

'No, my lord, that falls to me. If you were not on one side or the other of the wall, you would be pacing along it.'

'Your observations are flawless as always, Horatio.' He stared at his friend a moment then, realizing something missing, added, 'But wherever is your book today?'

The friend on the wall contemplated the one on the ground and finally answered, 'You are standing on it.'

His reply was so certain that the other looked down at his feet. 'I am not standing on any book. You must be mistaken.'

'Not at all, my lord. Today, the world is my book.'


	3. Greek Mood

Disclaimer: See preceding sections. Knowledge of Ancient Greek is not necessary for this story, although some understanding of grammar (in any language) would not hurt.

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Horatio was typically forthright, as straightforward as his Roman name - Horatius, of course, but what if _oratio_ was in there? Speech? Language? Horatio was given to speaking when the mood struck him, and he had a greater patience for languages - for new ones that could not be deemed to be of much use to him. It was clear enough that he had more use for the Romans than the Greeks, but he read the latter nearly as well as he did Latin, and he could speak it tolerably enough.

There were, however, some quirks in his spoken Greek that at first seemed to be unfamiliarity, or at least discomfort, with certain constructions. On further acquaintance, though, it became apparent that these were deliberate patterns, and that Horatio understood at least something of the nature of the Greek thinkers even if he seldom actively applied their ideas. But that was just it: Horatio was seldom active in Greek; he resided predominately in the passive. And as he strung sentences together with post-positive conjunctions, he made a path as surely as if he were unwinding a ball of clew while wandering through a twisting labyrinth of ideas into which he would never venture in Latin; a meandering journey much more like the way Hamlet's ideas usually ran. Yet it was somehow quintessentially Horatian that the doer of the action was rarely his subject, that the world he spoke of was one described by a fixed, constant observer - as Horatio himself was. In this way, the Horatio who spoke Greek seemed to be the true Horatio, the core of the unobtrusively wondrous being that was Horatio as the world knew him.

In a strictly literal sense, Hamlet could acknowledge to himself, this was absurd, for Greek was surely at least the third language Horatio had learned, perhaps even by way of Latin rather than his own native tongue. And yet, Horatio never really was the land or the people from which he came; Horatio was Horatio, and Hamlet felt he was admitted to something quite private whenever Horatio, silent and unmoving for the past hour or more, spoke unexpectedly but somehow never suddenly, starting with 'νῦν δε . . . ' and continuing on aloud some course of thought he had begun in his head who knew how long ago. Hamlet would sit mesmerized, enthralled by his friend's words, a part of him wondering what he might hear if he could perhaps nudge Horatio to speaking on a topic of Hamlet's choosing, the rest of him afraid that if he spoke at all - even made any kind of evidence of his presence - Horatio would cease from his ruminations, perhaps in offended privacy cease from Hamlet's company, or worse yet like some fairy spirit cease from association with mortals for a hundred years. So it was that Hamlet always listened in silence until the ideas - or perhaps the desire to give them voice - subsided, and Horatio sank again into soundless contemplation.

In all the months Hamlet had known him, Horatio had not given such vent to his thoughts above three, maybe four times, but these occasions were all the more precious for their rarity; quite unlike Hamlet, who sought out Horatio at least once a fortnight to impart, in Latin, his latest musings to a trusted ear, hoping for (and often receiving) some thoughtful response - conversation, even - upon the subject. The very next time, however, that Horatio set out upon one of his Greek ramblings, he came to a brief pause and turned to look Hamlet full in the eyes; from that time, Hamlet knew he was as welcome to the ῥήτωρ as to the _orator_.

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Notes

- νῦν δε (nun de) could be expressed with English 'now, however'.

- ῥήτωρ (rhetor) and _orator_ both convey the idea of a _public_ speaker, in which role I do not really see Horatio, but both are closely connected to the idea of speaking. English descendants of ῥήτωρ include 'rhetoric'; of _orator_, 'oration'.


End file.
